


Truth in Fiction

by ineedyoursway



Category: The Little Drummer Girl (TV)
Genre: Angst, F/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-01-15
Updated: 2020-02-14
Packaged: 2021-02-27 04:41:26
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 5
Words: 9,101
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22261231
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ineedyoursway/pseuds/ineedyoursway
Summary: Khalil doesn’t remove the batteries. Charlie wages war on both sides. It’s not a lie, it’s fiction.
Relationships: Charlie/Gadi, Charlie/Khalil
Comments: 11
Kudos: 179





	1. The Solemn Bird

She wakes the next morning to a soothing quiet. A world unchanged by the night’s events or the months prior. An eternal silence straight from the origins of man. Wind rustling long, tall grass, a gentle exhale that ebbs and flows. The inconsistent sound of a bird’s call, once, twice, pause. Once, twice, pause. A song. A response. It beckons. 

The fabric of the sheets rub together, sparking with friction as she moves her naked legs beneath them. There’s a dull ache behind her left eye, a thump in time with her heart. Once, twice, pause. Like a bird’s call. Still, it beckons. Her tongue is thick, mouth dry. She’s been asleep for hours, days, or only minutes. The light is a soft white and the bed is still warm, but half empty. Covers drawn. Body slipping away.

A crumpled slip of fabric is wadded up on the floor in the corner, discarded haphazardly the night before. Her toes sink into shag carpet as she stands, pulling the nightgown over her head, her shoulders inexplicably sore, her knuckles cracking, her ankles cold. Mercifully, it is dawn. She draws the sheer curtains back from the bedroom window, glancing out into the white light.

Outside, the morning is so calm it aches, its taste: bittersweet. To the naked eye, there is no disturbance. But she knows better. There is another pair of eyes staring back at her. Of that she is certain.

“Charlie.” A hand rests on her shoulder and she jumps, its warmth like an electric shock. Did she not realize she was freezing? “Come, you are cold.”

She turns to see Khalil, eyes a spring forest green-blue. Together, they walk down the stairs of this home. There are no personal touches here. The wallpaper in shades of orange, brown. Lived-in but not too lived-in. A guest house left vacant for the winter, perhaps? A family’s retreat? A quaint 3-bed, 2-bath below market value but still listed, waiting for a new young couple to move in? Or truly his? Unlikely, but maybe.

His wallpaper. His television. His slightly-worn couches, frayed at the armrest. His wooden table, complete with placemats and glasses, upon which their dinner still sits. Bread stale, soup cold, empty glasses and a three-quarters finished bottle of vodka. Her throat burns when she sees it as though she’s taken yet another shot. Her heartbeat, that solemn bird’s call, thumps harder still behind her eyes. Respond, it says. Respond, it beckons.

He wraps a blanket around her shoulders, the knit heavy on her body, her fingers pushing through its woven holes. They sit together at the table and she feels as though she is a stranger to herself, a foreigner in her own skin, trespassing just by breathing. He reaches a tentative hand out and for the first time she notices his fingernails, immaculately kept. But he is a game of opposites. A puzzle of dichotomies. He, too, is a stranger to himself. For though his fingernails are pristine, the skin beneath tells a second story. Rough calluses betray a storied life, the hard edges that match the scars from the night before.

He caresses her chin and cheek, excruciatingly sweet, nearing saccharine, and the air leaves her body in a grateful woosh. She drinks in his touch, desperate for the contact, clawing, worried she’ll die if it ends. What will she do in the world outside this house? What is she meant to feel when his fingertips leave her skin?

“I see you are regretful,” he says.

“No--” she tries to protest, but he cuts her off with a gentle humming noise, a mother soothing an agitated child.

“It cannot happen again.” He is firm in this, a downward tilt of the head, a creased brow. He leans back and she is cold again. He glances at his wristwatch, then to the window, his movements alight with agitation. A wicked perception. Electric, on the beat. Outside, the milkman drops off his bottles, the delicate clink of glass on glass as he clears the old away. Khalil settles. 

“It is 6. You will leave at 7. Do you understand?”

“I understand,” she says, her voice hoarse. 

He stands then, leaving her alone. He leaves the room silently, as if floating on air. She knows she is meant to gather her belongings, to look tough and aloof in her wakefulness, to hide the vulnerability she uses like a weapon, holster it for a new blade. Professional, yet subservient. Strength amongst martyrdom. The wise widow, grown hard from her misfortune, sharp yet soft. 

Every man’s desire: a mistress whose teeth have retractable fangs.

She clears her throat, steeling herself for a new performance. Yesterday’s clothes still smell faintly of smoke and rubble, her shoes caked in dirt from the walk. She dresses in silence, straining her ears for the sounds of Khalil moving about, clearing dishes, talking on the phone, anything at all. She hears nothing. 

Downstairs, her purse sits on the table where she left it. Inside, a portable radio with a tracking device, its batteries still intact. She understands now that she must leave without saying goodbye. That their tryst is ended, over, finished. Maybe their entire relationship is off. And then it would all be over, just like that. Everything, done. The blip of pleasure from the night before was a simple bird’s call. A song. A beckon. Once, twice, pause. Then no more. She slips out the front door, her purse draped inelegantly over her shoulder. Last night’s makeup smudged on her face, the cold wind of spring adding a flush. She walks confidently, yet casually. She’s being watched from multiple angles. It is terribly important not to look back. It is the only important thing. She couldn’t bear to be salt.

As she makes her way to the main dirt road, the gravel crunching beneath her shoes, she lifts her head up to the sky. She revels in its normalcy. Tree branches overlapping like interlocked fingers, the gentle rustle of a squirrel landing amongst dry leaves. Imagine if she saw something in her peripheral? Imagine if she caught him, just this once?

The home is gone now, swallowed by the forest. There are no more birds. From a far distance, she hears a car’s approach, the sound of its tires smooth as wind. A van pulls up alongside her, the door sliding open as if of its own accord. She steps inside and shuts it. Someone sits behind her, his face cloaked in shadows. She does her best to pay no mind, as if his presence is simply beneath her. The driver doesn’t turn around. By now, she is used to this level of anonymity. The almost commonplace detachment. Together, they drive back to London.

By the time she’s back in her flat, it is nearly noon. The television blares repeated coverage of yesterday’s explosion, listing the casualties and injuries she knows to be fiction. She switches it off with a click, startled by the quiet that this morning felt so gentle and soothing. Exhaustion settles over her like a thick smog, impossible to maneuver, and she is asleep again before she realizes.

When she wakes again, it is night. All of the lights are on in her flat, and though nothing looks amiss she can sense there has been a disturbance. Then she sees him, his back to her, staring out the window to the street. He’s hunched slightly, clothing so dark it seems damp. A gun still holstered in his belt. A living shadow. He twitches slightly as he hears her move, but doesn’t turn.

“You didn’t signal,” he says slowly. “You had him and you didn’t signal.”

She lets the words sink, drifting into the floorboards of the stale apartment. Their truth carries weight. She stands, speaks.

“Gadi.”


	2. Auld Lang Syne

She stands alone in a near-empty tube station. In the distance, an echoing, mournful rendition of Auld Lang Syne can be heard, played by an asian man, his hair long and overgrown, his hand dragging the string across an erhu with a deft touch. The timeless song runs through her head, the lyrics she doesn’t remember learning, the words she’s always known.  
_  
Should auld acquaintance be forgot,  
and never brought to mind?  
Should auld acquaintance be forgot,  
and auld lang syne?_

For the last two weeks, there is nothing. No messages, no calls, no contact. She remembers Gadi leaving her apartment, his eyes unwilling to meet hers, the soft click as the door shut behind him. The last she’s seen of him, though not the last he’s seen of her. She can feel him still in the periphery of her vision, hovering on the edges, soft and wispy, out of focus as if underwater. And when she turns her head, gone.

Those two nights play in her mind on a loop, over and over and over. A broken record player, skipping then repeating. The calm of the night with Khalil, his presence so easily eliminating her anxiety. She felt herself drawing too close to him. She knew, in the moment, that if she let herself fall for him it would be just that: falling. Succumbing. Effortless as gravity. 

Gadi, the night after, is the opposite. She plays the moments in her mind chronologically, like a film. Her approach to where he stands by the window, a tentative hand placed on his shoulder. How he immediately freezes, steps back, closes off, a vault slamming shut right before her eyes. She sees the war playing out across his features, the anger in the creases of his stare, the steeled impassivity of his downturned lips, the furrowed brow of hurt. 

“You told me to do it,” she accuses him weakly, little power behind her voice.

“I didn’t--” he begins to protest.

“In so many words,” she cuts him off. “You told me to.”

“Marty is pleased.” He’s practically sneering now.

“Given that I’m your charge, I’m sure his praise is reserved for you, his best agent.”

He jilts backward, pressed against the cold windowpane. 

“I’m not one of you,” Charlie whispers, though the flat is silent as the dead. “Remember?”

“I remember.” 

He reaches out his hand, and when his fingertips brush her chin she feels the spark of static electricity. He looks curious, puzzled even, as his fingers brush up and down her cheek. It’s as though he can feel the remnants of Khalil here, an invisible imprint. His lips purse as he squints, leaning backward to examine her at another angle, attempting to deduce a work of art all seem to understand except for him. 

She’s taken aback by how similar these actions are to this morning’s, two men whose fingertips are rough and storied, two men whose masks slip then replace. She watches the features in his face carefully neutralize until there is nothing behind his eyes but a reflection of her own staring back at him. Endless pupils, dilated to the abyss. His hand drops and he takes a step to the side, walking around her without another touch. She feels the displacement of air, a heavy shadow, and then, finally, the click of the door at his exit.

She checks her bag, where the only known tracking device she has lives: the mini radio. It’s still there. She examines it, flicking open the back to reveal the batteries. After a moment of deliberation, she replaces the plastic casing. 

Today, the blink of the locator marks Charlie at Waterloo station. This early in the morning, there are hardly any people. It’s a weekend, and most are sleeping in later than dawn. For now, it’s just her and the erhu player, with his mournful rendition of Auld Lang Syne. Suddenly, the music cuts. The agent has received his signal. He packs up and leaves, crossing Charlie from behind just as the train arrives. Her hair blows back, then settles. In a distant office, her tracking light blinks as she boards the train.

She sees someone in the opposite end of the traincar, so she steers clear and sits alone. The lights flash, the brakes screech, and they pull into the next station. Several people enter, one of which sits nearby, but not next to her. With a gap between them, Charlie chances a quick glance over. It is no one she recognizes, but that does not mean it is no one at all.

Several more stops and the train grows crowded. A pair of children need to sit, and the woman sitting slightly separate from Charlie slides next to her. The train accelerates and it is then that she feels an insistent press on the outside of her left thigh. She clutches her bag, pulling it tighter to her chest, then coughs to glance downward. Between them, resting slightly on the seat, is a set of keys attached to her neighbors belt loop with a metal carabiner. While Charlie watches, the woman reaches her hand down and slowly unhooks the carabiner. They pull into the station and she exits, leaving the keys behind.

Charlie quickly grabs them and puts them in her purse. She’s nearing the end of the line now and decides to make a quick exit, just in case. Her locator blinks.

Outside, the weather is unnaturally windy. She ducks her head against the force, a full body effort. Her hair whips around wildly, her dress clapping angrily against her knees. Across the street she sees a quiet coffee shop and makes her way over. Beneath the wind, she can hear the jangle of the keys in her purse, the rustle as they brush against the mini radio.

The coffee shop is earthy and warm, all wood tones and block-letter menu. On of a thousand nameless spots just like this that litter the city. Music plays quietly from a radio near the barista. A few people sit chatting near the window, a third alone in a back corner, head down, impossible to make out. She orders tea and takes a seat, warming her frozen fingers against the warm styrofoam. 

She’s only been sitting for a few moments before Rose walks in, cheeks pink and bundled up against the cold. She orders a drink and hovers, then comes up behind Charlie.

“I’m sorry, is this seat taken?” she asks. 

Charlie glances up, a half smile on her face as if broken from a trance. Outside the wind shakes the trees, leaves falling from their branches and swirling skyward.

“Oh no, of course not,” Charlie replies, pushing out the chair from beneath the table.

Rose sits, and, suddenly, as always, they’ve never met.

“Hope it’s not too much of a bother, it’s awfully windy out there,” Rose says, making polite conversation. 

“Yes, that’s why I’ve ducked in as well,” she replies. “I’m Charlie.” She reaches out her hand.

Rose, with new dark green nail varnish, takes it with a weak grip.

“Sam,” Rose says.

After a polite, closed-mouth smile they sit in silence for a few moments. Rose takes out a notebook and calmly begins to write. She places the pencil between her teeth, thinking, then jots an additional line down.

“Sorry,” Charlie interrupts, the picture of friendly embarrassment, “Are you a writer?”

“Yes, well, no,” Rose stumbles. “As in, I’d like to be. But I’m not published or anything like that. However I am looking to enter a writing contest, just a bit of poetry, mind you, nothing major. Actually, I’d love to get another set of eyes on it. Would you mind terribly?”

“On the contrary, I’d love to,” Charlie says.

Rose slides the notebook across the table. On the page, in chicken scratch handwriting formed as prose, is a message:

_Did something happen  
in the underground?  
Suspicious activity  
in station. _

Charlie bites her lip. It’s now confirmed to her that the keys are not the work of Mossad. They are the work of Khalil. She smiles slightly.

“Oh, I love this bit. May I?” she reaches for the pencil, Rose nods.

Keys. Don’t know to what. Or from who.

She passes the notebook back, Rose reads it. 

“Brilliant, that makes it so much better.” She stretches. “Actually, I think I’m going to head out while the wind lets up, thank you so much for your help.”

“Wait--” Charlie starts, then settles. She has broken character, but she rectifies the situation. “I’d love to leave you my phone number, just in case you need another look in the future.”

Rose, after a quick doubletake, slides back into the seat.

“Only if you wouldn’t mind,” she says, passing back the notebook.

Charlie takes the pencil once more.

_How is Gadi?_

She passes it back. Rose glances at it for only a moment, then shuts the notebook again and places it in her purse. They make eye contact for a moment. Rose’s head shakes almost imperceptibly, a quick gesture it would be impossible to notice without intense focus. She stands, the chair legs scraping against the wooden floor on her departure.

“Thanks again for your help!” she calls carelessly over her shoulder. Charlie nods her head, a slight salute with her tea as Rose leaves. The door shuts with a jingle of a bell and it is quiet again. She feels as though the keys are burning a hole in her purse. Her tea is nearly gone. Outside the window, she sees the blurred, dark brown hair of a tall man turning the corner and out of sight. 

She imagines it could be Gadi. She imagines it could be Khalil.


	3. No Signal is the Signal

Rose stands by the crackling fireplace, a razor blade and the notebook in her hands. Carefully, she cuts along the seam, removing every page used for communication between her and Charlie. She watches as the flames lick up the paper, soot curling into the words _How is Gadi?_ as they ash before her eyes. Then, as if coerced from an ethereal force, the man himself walks into the room, summoned by his name’s disappearance.

He stands behind her, asking but not asking.

“She seemed fine,” Rose says. “Not too shaken. No contact until today, but it’s as though they’re changing their communication method after Michel’s death. She was given a keys on the tube, but she doesn’t know to what. I saw them in her purse while she sat. Quite small, possibly for post boxes.”

He blinks quickly several times. Knowing Gadi, to Rose, has always been impossible. She’s known of him, of course. All the younger kids knew of him. His touch, Marty always called it. His seemingly effortless success not just as a soldier, but as an agent and, now, as an agent runner. As a team, they always tried to give him a wide berth. She’d never been as close to him as she is now, able to see his ways like under a magnifying glass. They are potent, toxic, all-encompassing. The room goes quiet when he enters. Even Marty himself defers to his decisions. She’d thought it all talk or, at least, over-inflated. But it is all true. 

The intuition. The solemnitude. The strife. The way his eyes unconsciously move to his agent. How he knows what to say and when. He was never wrong; only silent. ‘I feel as though I am working with the enemy,’ Rose once confessed to Rachel. ‘As though if I say the wrong thing in front of him, he will never forget it.’ 

He paces in front of her, a permanent crease between his brow, hunched shoulders, eyes alight in front of the crackling flame. It occurs to her that she’s never been in a room alone with him before, and now, more than ever, she feels as though she is in danger. How many men, she wonders, how many men has he killed? And to what end? 

“We should wait for a second message. A key, any contact. We know Khalil never does anything just once.” His voice cracks at first as if from lack of use. The circles under his eyes are dark and deep cut. Worse, even, than when Charlie was in Lebanon. All runners wander, restless without easy access to their agents, but this is worse than Rose has ever seen. 

“We’ll keep surveilling,” Rose says, if only to reassure him.

“No,” he says, more forcefully than she’s ever heard him speak. He clears his throat in what seems an effort to calm himself down. “No. They’re watching her, they’ll notice if we are also tailing. It’s only a matter of time. We don’t make contact unless she signals.”

“Gadi,” Rose starts. “Marty said--”

“I’ll speak to Marty,” he cuts her off. “Stop all surveillance.”

He leaves the room, closing the door behind him with a quiet, deadly click. She feels as though all of the air has left the space with him. She’s never disobeyed an order before, but these are directly conflicting asks from her superiors. She worries that Shimon has been right all along. What if this is more than an agent and agent runner relationship? What if the great Gadi Becker has a chink in his armor and it’s affecting his infallible judgement? His touch?

She turns back to her work, the razor blade cutting a thin, neat line along the spine of the notebook. Another page falls gently into the fire.

x

On the other side of the city, Charlie examines her keys, one in particular. It’s small, compact, notched and dented like it’s been used repeatedly. This isn’t a copy, this is an original. Perhaps for a post box? It’s certainly not a car or a home. She tests the lock in her front door and it slips in effortlessly: too small. She runs her fingers over its ridges, holding up to the light as if it will somehow reveal its secrets. She wonders who else has touched this. Khalil himself? Unlikely.

She is beset, suddenly, by an overwhelming loneliness. It is as though she is living a life parallel to her own, one that is driven entirely by the forces of others. She waits on the sidelines, a pawn for when anyone besides herself chooses to act. She longs for danger now. She’s asking for it. Something, anything, to break up the monotony of this existence. She glances at the telephone, contemplating calling Al, or any of her old friends from the theater.

She knows she has another option, a forbidden option. She could remove the batteries from the radio. It would work. It should work. She walks to her purse and pulls out the device, feeling the plastic backing intact. She opens it, revealing the two double A batteries placed inside. No signal is the signal. No signal is the signal. No signal is the signal.

Her fingers run over the plastic. It would be so simple.

Behind her, she hears a knock at the door.

x

Gadi knocks.

“Come in,” Marty calls from the other side, gruff and a bit raw. He enters the room to see him placing down the phone with a snap, most likely on another frustrating call with the home office. Shimon stands off to the side, reading through the postcards sent for the last bombing plan, checking new photographs to see if they’re from the same source. Without surveillance on anyone but Charlie, they are reduced to examining known patterns. Their staff is bored. There has been no political action beyond the attempted assassination. It has been weeks. 

It’s a disgusting reality, to be apathetic towards peace.

“That was Gavron,” Marty says once Gadi has closed the door. “He’s wanting us to cut back on staff, he doesn’t feel the cell is active enough to warrant the expense.”

Gadi scoffs slightly, draping himself over an armchair. Shimon glances up at him, then back at his work. There is a begrudging agreement between the two men. Shimon, with a delicate understanding for the sacrifice Gadi is making with Charlie balanced with his anger about Gadi’s seemingly limitless ability to do whatever he wants. Gadi, for Shimon’s stubbornness and borderline Zionist zealotry, but his commitment to helping Gadi when it matters most.

“At this point, I do think we’ll have to send people home. Until things pick up again, of course.” Marty elaborates.

He expects conflict here, but Gadi just wrinkles his nose.

“I agree. No surveillance on Charlie,” he says. “Not until she signals. We should send some of the kids home.”

At this, Shimon bristles.

“Charlie is our only surveillance point, Gadi. You’ll have us working with, what? Nothing? We already have no one on Helga. No one on Mesterbein.” 

Calm as ever, Gadi turns toward him.

“No surveillance on Charlie. Not until she signals,” he repeats. 

“We know you’re the runner, Gadi, but we need to know--” Shimon begins angrily.

“I am the runner, Shimon, and I said what I said. Marty?” He looks to him for confirmation, a challenge. He’s shown true anger for the second time in one day, practically unheard of for him. Marty raises his brow suspiciously, then clears his throat. In the silence, he slowly cracks the knuckles of his right hand, then his left. 

“Shimon,” Marty says. “Will you give us a moment please?”

Shimon throws down his papers in a huff, the chair wailing against the floor as he stands. He gives one last glance to the two men in the room, then leaves them in near silence. Gadi’s breath is moving quickly in and out of his chest, though he stays seated. Marty is calm as ever, the rain pattering gently behind him against the glass window. The day is grey, dreary, unending. Gadi feels himself stuck on the river Styx, paddling and paddling and paddling yet reaching no destination, good or bad. His fate, immovable and unknown.

“Gadi,” Marty begins, then sighs. 

He can see Gadi is closed to him now, as he has been in the past. The tide has shifted, moved outward, unstoppable. The moon moved when he suggested Charlie remain an agent, and it is a sacrifice Marty is unsure he should have made. There is a difference here between their past operations together, he can feel it but he chooses to deny it. Gadi is a professional and he will remain a professional, or Marty will simply need to dismiss him. Which would end the operation. Which is impossible. He feels constricted, stuck between a rock and a hard place: Gadi, his beloved runner, a troubled and uncompromising success and the agent that may be his only shot to delve deeper than ever before into Khalil’s cells.

“Please, why are you pulling away?” he asks. “Do you feel as though she has turned? Do you feel as though we have lost her? Because you know what we must do, if so. I ordered you to let them run and we both knew the risk that would take. I trust your judgment if you feel that risk was too great. If she is no longer in our family, she is our enemy.”

Gadi, stone-faced and seemingly impassive, looks somewhere beyond Marty’s shoulder and out into the rain. Gadi may be a world-renowned agent, but Marty himself is his match in experience and expertise. He translates all languages of humanity, a sentient rosetta stone. And he knows he must wait, so he waits.

After several long moments, in a blank voice, Gadi speaks.

“I don’t believe she’s turned, no. But I don’t believe I can be her runner any longer,” he says.

“And who else do you suggest then?”

Silence.

“And why, Gadi? She opens to your touch alone. We have come farther than I could have dreamed.”

“I am her partner in a fiction that is no longer a necessity. Michel is dead, Marty. Who am I meant to be?” For the first time, Gadi makes eye contact and Marty can see his sudden, urgent desperation. The inner layer he keeps under lock and key. The divorced man in self-exile, the trauma of violence, the intimacy of death.

“I suppose you will have to be yourself.”

Gadi opens his mouth to respond but the door flies open, Shimon’s sudden intrusion.

“Marty, Gadi,” he says, “It’s Charlie. No signal is the signal. We’ve lost her. Her location is gone.”


	4. The Color of Blood

Daniel hangs up the payphone three blocks from Charlie’s flat. Rose has just asked him if he is returning home in time for dinner, and whether the gravy from last night was still good to reheat for today. Stand down, but only if Charlie is still acting as usual. Marty’s orders. He opens the door to the payphone and walks out into the rainy evening. The street is quiet, foggy, damp. A typical English evening. He despises it. He pulls his collar up to his chin and hunches away from the wet, counting down the minutes until he’s able to leave this godforsaken country.

Though he finds it strange to be called down from Charlie’s surveillance, he knows not to question orders. He is trained in it. The last thing you do is second guess the authority of Marty, Gadi. Irreverent names from countless missions, many of which he learned about in said training. He takes pride in being a part of Marty’s go-to team, and he’s not about to mess that up by defying a questionable request. 

His senses are on alert while he leaves her street and steps seamlessly into the back of the surveillance van, but he sees nothing out of the ordinary. It’s only five minutes later when everything begins to fall apart like dominos, one after the other. They’re stuck at a red light when the blip disappears. At first, Daniel thinks it’s just interference. He smacks his hand against the machine as the van rumbles to life once more but, still, the signal is down. He smacks it again. Nothing.

The van pulls up to another stop and Daniel unlocks the back and jumps out into stalled traffic. The driver in the car behind peers through the racing windshield wipers in confusion as a cloaked man streaks from the van and out into the rain, dissolving into the shadows as though never there at all. The driver rubs his eyes behind his glasses, then replaces them. The light turns green and the van pulls away.

Daniel’s feet splash through the puddles. He’s soaked up to his ankles by the time he reaches the pay phone. The phone picks up but no one says hello, as expected. Daniel’s breathless, but works to calm his voice.

“No one answered the phone, I think the line’s disconnected,” he says urgently.

“What?” crackles the voice on the other end. Shimon. The rain’s picking up now, wind battering the glass walls of the phone booth, making them rumble and shake. 

“The line’s disconnected,” he repeats. He hears the click of the phone as it meets the receiver, then the drone of a dial tone. He replaces the payphone, takes a handkerchief from his pocket and wipes down the fingerprints. His throat is tight and he has to repeatedly remind himself that he was ordered to stand down. Still, he can’t shake the feeling he’s about to walk into the lion’s den. He takes a long route back to their home, ducking in and out of stores and around street corners into alleyways. There is something suspicious about a dropped signal only moments after his departure. Something that makes the hair rise on the back of his damp neck. Something that makes him wonder if he’s being watched. 

Gadi is waiting on the other end of the front door when Daniel arrives, nearly pulling him inside. The water collects beneath them as he breaks down his last thirty minutes: the order to retreat, the drive, the lost signal, the phone call. Time codes. Routes. The exact phone booth he used. 

“And where was she when you last saw her?” Gadi asks.

“Entering the flat like usual. Everything is normal.”

“And on the street? No cars? Do we have photographs? Number plates?” 

“Not from tonight, no.”

Gadi’s palm slams into the wall. 

“Gadi,” Marty says from the corner of the room, his voice calm but forceful. Gadi turns to him, and for a moment Daniel imagines a fight breaking out. Instead, Gadi brushes past him and into the room behind, slamming the door. Marty approaches Daniel, a hand on his shoulder. 

“He is not angry with you, Daniel,” he says. “He is angry with himself.”

“Why did you call me back? I was so near when the signal dropped. I should have been there,” Daniel says, frustrated.

“That was not my order,” Marty responds. “And I believe if you had stayed, the signal would be alive and well and Charlie would still be in her flat now.”

“You say then that we are too obvious, they know of us.”

“They know something,” Marty says, bouncing his pointer finger up and down, readjusting his glasses. “They may not know of us, but they know something. We must pull back, perhaps fully.”

Daniel glances around at the room, now full of agents, each taking in the weight of Marty’s words. Pull back fully, as in return home and await orders. Indefinitely. They don’t meet each other’s eyes, but the room is so quiet even a drop of water would sound like a landmine. Marty leaves the room first, following Gadi’s departure albeit with his signature calm demeanor. Daniel feels as though he’s been riding his motorcycle on the highway at full speed and, suddenly, the engine is cut. He hurtles through open air indefinitely and braces himself for an impact that never comes.

x  


Marty enlists his lookouts at airport security Heathrow, Gatwick, and Stansted. 

They come back with nothing. 

It is possible that Charlie has left the country in disguise, but something in Marty’s gut--his most valuable asset--tells him otherwise. Charlie is still in England, maybe even still in London. Right beneath his nose. Perhaps it is time, he worries, for another friendly conversation with Commander Picton.

x

Gadi spends the morning briefing Rose on her final orders before leaving the country. Together, they stand amongst the boxes filled to the brim with equipment to be shipped back to Israel. The radiators hiss and clang against the wall, heating up the building for one more day as they get the last things out. Gavron ordered a 24 hour turn-around. Everything, and everyone, must go.

“Do you understand?” Gadi asks, slipping the mini camera into her bag. “Leave the box, it’s clothes sent from her family home. They can stay. Make sure the box is left in front of the door so that if it’s nudged, we’ll know.”

“I understand, Gadi,” Rose says. 

Gadi nods, slips on his jacket, moves to leave the room.

“Hey,” she says, stopping him. He doesn’t turn. “She’s going to be okay. She’s a brilliant actress and they trust her.”

“Don’t,” he says softly, then shuts the door behind him.

Thirty minutes later, Rose pulls up to Charlie’s flat as a rain-drenched employee of the Royal Mail. She sloshes her way through the alleyway beside a mediterranian restaurant and climbs the rickety stairs to Charlie’s front door. She knocks, expecting no answer and receiving the same. A quick glance over her shoulder reveals nothing but grey skies and a shutter flapping in the breeze on the adjacent building. From out of her pocket she fishes the key to the front door and enters. 

The flat looks entirely innocuous. The bed is made up, there are magazines on the table by the window. The only clue to anything out of the ordinary is the half-drunk cup of coffee on the counter, a lipstick stain pressed to the curve. She takes out her mini camera and snaps a photo. If it begins suspicious it must remain suspicious. She paces around the small area quickly. It’s dark, cold, a bit drafty. There’s a fine layer of dust on the lamp. 

At the lamp is where she finds the radio, flipped upside down, batteries carefully sat beside it. She snaps a photo. It looks deliberately placed and waiting for her to see it: both a comfort and a worry. Could Charlie, knowing she was in danger, have taken out the batteries on purpose? Or was it someone else, someone who knows about the Mossad, knows about the tracking device, knows to remove the batteries? Given the timing of the disappearance, she leans toward the latter. She worries that, suddenly, they are one step behind in this dance.

She takes a few more photos of discarded clothing, a half-empty refrigerator, a bunched up pillow. There are a couple unopened letters placed haphazardly near a bookshelf. She doesn’t recognize the handwriting, but opens them with a fine razorblade and photographs them just in case. Then, just as quickly as her arrival, she slips out the door, leaving the package on the welcome mat, sheltered from the rain by an eave.

x

Gadi sits in the passenger’s seat of an old Ford Escort on his way to the airport, Daniel driving. Everything seems to be going in slow motion. There are few things worse to Gadi than not knowing. Ignorance is his nightmare. His attempts to master his surroundings, his self-plotting amongst chaos, is what got him into this business in the first place. He yearns for the simplicity of Berlin, the monochromatic stone, the answers when asked. His palms are sweaty; he rubs them along his denim jeans.

“Alright, Gadi?” Daniel asks. 

“Pull over.”

Daniel shoots across three lanes of traffic and pulls onto the shoulder, cars ripping past. Gadi stumbles out of the car and out onto the pavement, overwhelmed by a sudden and unstoppable bout of nausea. He vomits into a patch of tall grass, curled halfway over as a truck angrily honks its horn in a parabola of noise. He wipes his mouth, folds himself back into the car and shuts the door with a click. 

Daniel pulls the car back into traffic. They are silent.

On the plane, Gadi sits next to a beautiful redhead. Her lips are the color of blood, sticky, eyes draped in luxurious liner, sultry and winged. She glances at him, then away. Glances, then away. One more time, then away. When the air hostess walks by she orders a gin and tonic, teacup sleeves brushing his jacket with a casual reach. She thinks to herself, _perhaps if I spill…_

He sees her intentions, written across her face as if in permanent ink. He turns toward her, her pulse spikes, her cheeks flush. His eyes are dark, deep set, etched in something unknowable. 

“What is your name?” he asks her. 

“Charlotte,” she says, a bit breathless, but perhaps that’s just the gin. The altitude. 

“Charlotte,” he repeats, tilting his head to the side, a cat on the prowl.

“Yours?” she asks.

“James.”

“James,” she repeats. “Is Berlin home, James?”

“No,” Gadi smiles, close-mouthed and dark. “You might say I live in exile.”

There is a quick bout of turbulence, the plane shakes. A bit of gin splashes out of her plastic cup and onto the seatrest. Gadi unbuckles, stands, holds out his hand to her. Together, they walk to the airplane restroom. With two quick steps and a jolt, he locks the door behind them.

“What would you like, Charlotte?” he asks. 

She leans forward and catches his lips with her bloody ones, the tang of gin. More turbulence, they jostle together in the small space. He opens his mouth to match hers, grasps her face to pull it closer and closer still. Her earrings jangle against his chin, his shoulders hunched as he curls around her like a parenthesis. His lips, too, are now bloody red. 

Pulling back, Gadi catches her eyes: brown, that’s not right. Her sounds, that’s not right. He clenches his eyes shut, angry. 

“Is something wrong?” she asks. The accent, a hint of German. That’s not right. But her hair. He grabs a few strands, moving them back and forth between his fingers while he catches his breath. He feels himself fraying at the edges, and that simply will not do. 

Quickly, he turns her around, draped over the sink, head down. He lifts the back of her dress, unbuttons his pants, and buries his fingers in her red, red hair.


	5. The Taste of Salt

There are few offices as cold and unforgiving as Commander Picton’s. Centuries of bureaucracy live in the dark wooden walls, thousands of secrets and just as many lies. Marty approaches the empty desk, sits down in a stiff chair upholstered in deep green fabric, the bones of it as dark as the rest of the room. He clears his throat and waits, a continued master of patience. Downstairs in the cool marble lobby, Shimon sits with their luggage, making a proper display of being on their way out of the country. The security guard at the desk eyes him, his crisp suit and skinny black tie neatly hiding the wire to his earpiece, a direct line of communication with his associates on higher floors.

On the wall to Marty’s left, an oil painting of a stern-looking man in 18th century English military regalia seems to stare at him, though he knows that these are the most innocuous pair of eyes in the room. He sighs deeply. He knows he’s being watched and he’s playing for the cameras like a seasoned movie star. He stretches his legs, checks his watch unhurriedly, lavishing in the silence as if he has all the time in the world. There’s a gentle courtesy knock on the door as a twenty-something aged man in a sweater and finely-cut slacks enters the room, underdressed for this type of environment. He carries with him two empty teacups and a kettle on a tray, placing it before Marty on Picton’s unoccupied desk, gently moving aside stacks of loose paper and pens.

“Tea, sir?” he asks, his voice surprisingly gentle, a northern accent at the edges. 

“Yes, thank you,” Marty nods, watching his unsteady hands as he pours tea into both cups. 

“I’m terribly sorry, Commander Picton’s last meeting seems to be taking longer than he expected and he asked me to run ahead and keep you company. Are you in any hurry at all?”

“No, no hurry,” Marty responds. “And you are?”

“Oh, gosh. My name’s George. George Smith. I do get ahead of myself sometimes. I’m Commander Picton’s assistant.” Flustered, he hands Marty the tea with a slight jangle.

“Thank you Mr. Smith.” Marty nods his head, takes a sip of his tea. It is scalding hot.

“Of course.”

There is another noise behind the pair as Picton strides into the room, a newspaper tucked under his arm, all perfectly-tailored suit and rain-dappled hat. He hands both his outer layer and his hat to George, who hangs them up on the coat rack in the corner of the room. Without any acknowledgement to Marty, he walks around his desk, sits down, and steeples his hand together, resting his chin on his fingertips.

“Mr. Kurtz,” he says, prim and proper. His white hair shines with a layer of sweat, his forehead creased with age. There is a larger sense of unease here. Though he doesn’t like to admit it, working with Mossad has always made him uncomfortable, especially in his own jurisdiction. If it weren’t so politically unsavory, Picton wouldn’t have even taken this meeting. “I did think we were out of each other’s hair altogether, but I see that I was wrong in that regard.”

Marty chuckles, placing his tea down on the desk.

“You couldn’t possibly get rid of me that easily, I’m afraid,” Marty responds good-naturedly. 

“Your friend downstairs, he is waiting with luggage. Dare I ask if you’re returning to your homeland?” Picton asks.

“Shimon? Oh yes, we’re on our way to Heathrow after this. Back to our homeland, as you say.”

“Well, have you left a little mess for me on your way out then? I assume that’s why you’re here.”

Out of the corner of his eye, Marty sees George Smith writing down furiously in a notepad. Excess water from Picton’s hat drips down onto George's shoulder, but he doesn’t seem to notice. Marty clears his throat and gestures to the boy with his chin.

“It’s a bit sensitive,” he says sheepishly for the benefit of Picton. Over the years, he’s learned the best way to get the English to cooperate is to play into their ego, their sense of divine personal supremacy. The residual effects of a crumbling empire. How, he sometimes tells his wife on the phone, they all consider themselves lords and ladies. 

“George has security clearance,” Picton says shortly.

“Yes, okay then,” Marty continues, “As you know, we took a calculated risk in letting Khalil continue to operate his cells from your country in the hopes that he will continue showing us the intricacies of his network. I’m pleased to say that the risk was worth it, as our agent Charlie has now been picked up by them and we look forward to learning more than ever before.”

Picton rubs his temples with his forefingers.

“A calculated risk I do not seem to recall agreeing to, yes. Has Charlie left the country then?” he asks. “On her way to merry Palestine? You know I am still displeased with your use of an English national.”

“I have reason to believe she is still here. And it is because of this that I come asking for your permission in all things. We would like to keep remote surveillance on Charlie, but we need the cooperation of the national police. And MI5, of course. More eyes, as you say. And if she leaves English soil, we too leave English soil.”

“All of this, as a Palestinian terrorist organization continues to bomb your people?” Picton asks ruthlessly.

“My people,” Marty repeats thoughtfully. “Yes, yes you are right. My people. Unfortunately, my people are in your country.”

“Unfortunately,” Picton tuts. “Indeed.”

“I’m requesting we have one of our agents on the ground here in London with access to your infrastructure. We will be unobtrusive.”

“No. Your people are not unobtrusive. Your people are particularly ruthless. If you want our cooperation, you will use an English agent to run Charlie, and I will work not with you but with Gavron. And the next time we surround Khalil? We are done. You take him to Israel, you deal with him there.”

“Our intent is to stop innocent killings in your country. The more we learn of Khalil’s network, the more lives are saved,” Marty responds, not acknowledging the slew of demands he is unable to accept.

“Innocent killings due to a war we have no part in,” Picton snaps, nearly standing up from his chair. “On our doorstep. In our laps. Sir, our cooperation in this operation is a generosity and you will take it as such. You think we do not have more to deal with than the deaths of a few Jews? Then you are very wrong. George.” Picton waves his hand. George stops his furious writing and stands with a slight stumble, moving forward to where Marty and Picton sit. Marty turns his full body toward the boy. Absently, Marty wonders if he is old enough to grow facial hair.

“After you leave this country, and only after, George will be Gavron’s point of contact. He may be young but he is one of our best agents.”

“I can accept your terms, but Mr. Smith will work with me,” Marty allows. “This is my operation, and I will be far more valuable to it than Gavron. He, I am sure, would prefer a more… how did you put it… ah yes, a _ruthless_ option than I am suggesting. I would not want to see any English citizens caught in a crossfire.”

“Fine,” Picton says. “But I do not wish to see you in my office again.”

Marty stands, holds out his hand to shake. Picton takes it, limp and cold.

“I do believe you have a plane to catch.”

x

“What are you thinking about?” Charlie asks, running her palm along the lines of Gadi’s forehead. He glances over at her, her hair in wild tangles, her cheeks flushed, her naked body wrapped up in his inexpensive white sheets. His small, rented room is bathed in light: rare for England. Suddenly, it feels like home. Not Berlin, but long ago. Before everything went wrong. Warm sand, yellow light, the hot sun turning the sky into a warble. A beam illuminates her hair in a glow. 

“Just a memory,” he says, turning toward her and touching her bottom lip with his fingertip. He tugs until her mouth opens. He can feel each warm exhale and it causes him to move closer on the bed, until nothing separates them. He grabs her hand and bites her finger, her arm, her neck, her lips. “What are you thinking about?” he asks in return.

“Salt,” she responds, and licks the side of his face, up to his ear. His beard is rough against her skin, soft and pale. He grabs her waist, pulling her up and over him. She straddles him, touching the scars on his chest reverently. Her skin is untouched, her soul unmarked. Pure. He moves the hair off her face with both hands and notices, suddenly, that she is crying. 

“What is it?” he asks, brushing away the tears with his thumbs. Her eyes well up again, he feels the drops fall. They land on his scars.

“You’re killing me, Gadi,” she whispers, her voice rough and low. “I’m dying.”

“No,” he protests. “No, I wouldn’t do that. Not anymore.”

He pulls her closer still, the side of her face resting against his chest. He can feel her heartbeat through her skin. He strokes her hair gently until her breathing slows. She looks up at him, her green eyes rimmed in red, crawling up to kiss his lips. He tastes her tears. Salt. She tastes of salt.

She sinks down onto him with a gasp, kissing him through his moan. Above him, draped in white and bathed in light, she is an angel. She begins to move faster, her eyes closed.

“Charlie,” he gasps. “Charlie, look at me. Charlie. Charlie.”

She tilts her head down, opens her eyes. The tears are gone, but there is blood. So much blood. It drips down her cheeks, from her ears, her nose, her eyes.

“You’re killing me,” she mouths, drowned out by a noise. A ringing, perhaps in his ears? It’s getting louder and louder and louder. Shrill. He can’t hear her anymore, just the ringing. He clutches at her shoulders. His hands are covered in blood. Slippery. Wet. He can’t even hear his own scream.

Gadi jolts awake, head pounding and covered in sweat. His telephone is ringing, shaking on the hook. It’s the middle of the night and he has fallen asleep at his desk again, hunched over the photographs Rose sent to an unregistered Deutsche Post PO Box the week prior. They lay out in front of him in an arc, their edges now soft like fabric from constant appraisal. He’s read them hundreds of times, examined them for patterns, attempted to make connections and found nothing. Sometimes he wants to throw them all into the fire. But they’re all he has left.

He crosses the room and answers the phone.

“Marty,” he answers shortly, the only person who has his current phone number. “I need to return to London.”

“Yes, well,” Marty sighs, his voice crackling over the distant connection. “I can’t say I got that approved. But I do have some cooperation from the Brits.” In the background, Gadi can hear the tinkling voices of women chatting, perhaps Marty’s wife and her friends. He imagines them in a bright sitting room sharing drinks and snacks, oblivious to Marty’s phone call.

“Then what do we have?” Gadi answers, monotone. 

“We have an English agent and eyes within most of the national departments. They have orders to report back if they see her. And then, we move forward. We make a plan.”

“So we have nothing.”

“You know this job requires patience,” he admonishes.

“Patience for more deaths, then? Patience for another bombing? Patience for Charlie, who will perhaps place another bomb herself?”

“Perhaps,” Marty allows. “Perhaps.”

Gadi has to physically stop himself from hanging up the phone at this point. 

“I need Schwili. I need Miss Bach. I’m finding nothing in the letters from Charlie’s apartment, nothing in the photos.”

“Then perhaps there is nothing, Gadi,” Marty says. “A letter from friends may very well be a letter from friends.”

“The radio was placed, Marty. I know it.”

“And is your intention to walk directly into the trap, then? Follow it like a sniffing dog, blind but for his bait?”

Gadi swallows.

“Come back to me when I’m approved to fly,” he says, then hangs up the phone. 

He feels drunk, stumbling around his flat, searching through the cabinets for some aspirin. Everything is coated in a fine layer of dust. He can hear the sound of the busy street outside, muffled through the glass window. He swallows a handful of pills and rests his head against the dewy glass, taking deep breaths in an attempt to calm his frustration. Never, in hundreds of missions, has it been like this. He knows the risks, he knows the cause. He’s run agents to the ground. He’s killed them when they’ve turned. He’s been put on hold for months. He’s found nothing, then he’s found everything. But this urgency, this desperation to know immediately… it is foreign. 

He reprimands himself, moves back to his desk, and stares at the photographs once more.

Maybe this time it will be different, he hopes. Maybe this time he will find the missing link.

x

Charlie walks outside with a gun pointed at her back from a slightly ajar window. It has been days since she has seen the outside world. It’s dusk, the sun setting behind distant clouds. Seagulls caw in the sky. Street lights flicker on, creating little glowing puddles. As ordered, she waits for a passing black cab. A few moments later, it pulls up to the curb and she opens the door. Inside, there is already a passenger.

“Hello again, Charlie,” Helga says, pulling her into a tight embrace. “I need to ask you a few questions about a mobile radio.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hey all, know not many people read this but i would love anyone's thoughts on the shifting perspectives. i don't usually write with more than one POV, but i felt it necessary for this type of story. is it confusing? too hard to follow? let me know x


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